Research on the Mechanism of Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Education in Higher Vocational Colleges: The Case of Zhejiang

Province

Hongbo Ma

1,2

, Mingchang Wu

and Lanfang Shang

Graduate School of Technological and Vocational Education, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, 123

University Road, Yunlin, Taiwan

Department of Management, Zhejiang Industry Polytechnic College, 151 Qutun Road, Shaoxing, China

Keywords: Higher Vocational College, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education (IEE), Innovation and

Entrepreneurship Competition (IEC), Internet+, Zhejiang Province

Abstract: Innovation and entrepreneurship education play an essential role in the development of higher vocational

colleges, employment of students, and social service. On December 2017, the state council published

Several Opinions About Deep Integration of Industry and Education, which means it's a positive signal to

higher vocational colleges. In this article, we introduce the status quo and issues of innovation and

entrepreneurship education of more top vocational colleges in China. Then, according to Basil Bernstein's

theory of the pedagogic mechanism, we analyse the mechanism of innovation and entrepreneurship

education from four aspects in Zhejiang province. Major findings of this study include: (1) In the instructor

training, Zhejiang Department of Education invests lots of resources to train a large number of

entrepreneurial mentors whether is from undergraduate or vocational colleges; (2) In student training, higher

vocational college students must complete two credits of IEE courses and can apply for SYB courses free of

charge; (3) After five years of development, the popularity of innovation and entrepreneurship competition

has been increasing, and the participation of higher vocational colleges has doubled; (4) After a decade of

exploration and development, mass innovation space has evolved from the early 1.0 hardware version,

which only provided sites and equipment, to the 2.0 and 3.0 software versions with capital docking and

government support.

1 INTRODUCTION

Different from the other three industrial revolutions,

industry 4.0 is an era in which information

technology is used to promote industrial

transformation. Internet technology reduces the

information asymmetry between production and

sales and accelerates the mutual contact and

feedback between them. Faced with the challenge of

industry 4.0, the role of universities has also

changed, not only allowing students to study high-

tech majors but also cultivating innovation and

entrepreneurship ability. Higher vocational college

students have strong practical operation ability.

Once systematic innovation and entrepreneurship

education and training, they can quickly develop

Internet business operations. In the 1950s, the

United States began to implement project-based

innovation and entrepreneurship education (IEE).

The IEE system in the United States is relatively

complete, which generally includes courses such as

marketing, financial management and business plan

development, and links IEE with the degree. Some

universities even offer bachelor's and master's

degrees in innovation and entrepreneurship (Sun and

Zhao, 2017; Xie, 2019).

In the traditional Chinese concept, the training of

applied talents only exists in higher vocational

colleges, while the education of undergraduate

colleges and universities should focus on theory and

strengthen the scientific research (Liu, 2018).

Therefore, China's IEE started relatively late, and

only in the 21st century began to pay attention to

IEE, and has issued a series of policies to encourage

innovation and entrepreneurship (Xie, 2019). "Mass

Entrepreneurship and Innovation" came from

premier Li Keqiang's speech at BBS summer

Ma, H., Wu, M. and Shang, L.

Research on the Mechanism of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education in Higher Vocational Colleges: The Case of Zhejiang Province.

DOI: 10.5220/0010686500002967

In Proceedings of the 4th International Conference of Vocational Higher Education (ICVHE 2019) - Empowering Human Capital Towards Sustainable 4.0 Industry, pages 431-437

ISBN: 978-989-758-530-2; ISSN: 2184-9870

431

DAVOS in September 2014. At the 2015 National

People's Congress, the government elevated mass

entrepreneurship and innovation to a new engine of

economic growth. In March 2015, the general office

of the state council issued guidance opinions, which

encouraged college students to carry out innovation

and entrepreneurship activities. In May 2016, the

public office of the state council issued the

implementation Opinions on Building

Demonstration Bases for Mass Entrepreneurship and

Innovation, and systematically deployed the

construction of demonstration bases for mass

entrepreneurship and innovation. On September 18,

2018, the state council issued the Opinions on

Promoting High-quality Development of Innovation

and Entrepreneurship and Creating an Upgraded

Version of Mass Entrepreneurship and Innovation.

Zhejiang higher vocational education IEE has

developed rapidly and ranked first in China. In 2018,

Zhejiang department of education organised the

selection of exemplary entrepreneurship colleges in

Zhejiang, among which there were 13 vocational

colleges. Some of these higher vocational colleges

are setting up entrepreneurship colleges, and some

are setting up entrepreneurship parks. Most

vocational colleges in Zhejiang started to establish

entrepreneurship colleges after 2010, and

accordingly entrepreneurship colleges have issued

relevant policies to encourage innovation and

entrepreneurship activities, including flexible credit

system and financial support policies for students'

entrepreneurship. And, Yiwu Industrial and

Commercial College is the first college to establish

entrepreneurship college since 2008 in Zhejiang.

The research of IEE is still a new research

direction in China, which scholars rarely do research

from the perspective of pedagogy and higher

vocational colleges. According to Basil Bernstein's

theory of the pedagogic mechanism, there are three

fields: knowledge production field (I),

recontextualisation field (II) and remanufacturing

field (III). In the area of knowledge production,

different groups try to turn their knowledge into

thinkable knowledge. In the recontextualisation

field, different groups transform conceivable

knowledge into educational discourse and construct

a legitimate educational practice. In the reproduction

field, various groups compete to identify and realise

the educational code type embodied in the legal

education practice, so as to facilitate the

reproduction (Bernstein, 2000; Wang, 2018). This

article is aimed to analyse the mechanism of IEE in

Zhejiang province. Based on the current local

government policies, we try to build the mechanism

from four aspects: instructor training, student

training, three levels' competitions and mass

innovation space (Figure 1).

Figure 1: The mechanism of IEE in Zhejiang province

based on Basil Bernstein's theory.

2 LITERATUR REVIEW

2.1 Instructor Training

Zhejiang provincial education department set up the

implementation guidance office of entrepreneurship

instructor cultivation project. From 2016, our

province will fully organise and implement

"Cultivation Project" in colleges and universities of

the whole region, according to the tasks and

requirements put forward in the policy. By 2020,

Zhejiang will arrange a provincial training program

for 5,000 entrepreneurship instructors. There are

1737 entrepreneurship instructors from the higher

vocational colleges. And, There're two types of

entrepreneurship instructor training in colleges and

universities. First is a universal practice focusing on

improving the implementation of IEE. The second

type is integrated training with deep professional

integration. The most significant difference between

the two is the difference between the trainees, who

are more professional than the former. The training

period is five fulltime days (Figure 2).

ICVHE 2019 - The International Conference of Vocational Higher Education (ICVHE) “Empowering Human Capital Towards Sustainable

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432

Figure 2: The regional population distribution of higher

vocational colleges in "Cultivation Project".

Through the Cultivation Project, Zhejiang

government will foster a sufficient number of a

high-quality team of entrepreneurship mentors.

Zhejiang tries to build a long-term mechanism of

training entrepreneurship mentors, professional

development, and the hiring to promote in-depth

development of college students' innovative

entrepreneurial education. After setting the overall

goals, we will create entrepreneurship instructors

selected training mechanism, create entrepreneurship

instructor talent pool, create a group of instructor

studios and instructor teams, organise activities to

match the industry, carry out multiple forms of IEE

training and mentoring activities, and create the

management platform of instructor training and

curriculum resource. According to their own actual

situation, every colleges or university can make the

implementation plans of "cultivation project".

2.2 Student Training

In the traditional Chinese concept, the training of

applied talents only exists in higher vocational

colleges, while the education of undergraduate

colleges and universities should focus on theory and

strengthen the scientific research (Liu, 2018).

Therefore, more top vocational colleges have an

earlier and stronger working institution to promote

IEE. Li, Cui, Li, & Xiong (2019) found that colleges

and universities in Zhejiang all have clear talent

training goals, which are oriented to cultivating

innovative and entrepreneurial talents. However,

they vary according to different types and positions

of schools. Most of higher vocational colleges have

established institutions such as entrepreneurship

colleges, especially Yiwu Industrial and Commercial

College, which operates in the first place, has its

own faculty resources and is directly enrolled in the

students. By 2020, no less than 2% of the students in

all universities will receive specialised training on

innovation and entrepreneurship every year, and the

number of college students in the province will

reach 20,000.

All higher vocational colleges have courses in

innovation and entrepreneurship. 2 credits for

required courses are included in the undergraduate

training program. At the same time, more top

vocational colleges actively explore the embedded

trails of knowledge based on professional experience

(Jiang, 2019). They have not only the whole college,

the fundamental innovation and entrepreneurship

courses, but also the unique and interdisciplinary

courses of innovation entrepreneurship (Li et al.,

2019). Based on the college of economic or

management, many entrepreneurial basic courses are

opened, such as management, accounting, marketing

and other aspects. Based on the engineering training

base, many innovative courses are opened, such as

mechanical arm operation, CNC machine operation,

3D printing, and other advanced manufacturing

courses. These courses aim to help students to

understand the basic concept of innovation and

entrepreneurship and to prepare for their next phase

of the future.

On the other hand, labour employment service

centres of prefecture-level cities in Zhejiang

province organise SBY training for higher

vocational college students. SYB (Start Your

Business) is a public employment training program

jointly run by the international labour organisation

and the ministry of labour and social security of

China. Since its pilot in 1998, the project has helped

countless unemployed people to find their own jobs

and start their own businesses (Zheng, 2005). SYB

training has three textbooks: Entrepreneurship

Awareness Training Booklet, Entrepreneurship Plan

Training Booklet and Business Plan (Yu, 2014).

These training courses integrate the entrepreneurial

process into ten steps, adopts the teaching method of

a participatory classroom, and enables students to

improve their business plan through complete and

systematic practical training as a hypothetical

entrepreneur, so as to establish and maintain a

profitable enterprise (Sun, 2019).

The SYB training program consists of 10 steps

and consists of two parts. (1) SYB entrepreneurship

training (the first two steps). This includes educating

Research on the Mechanism of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education in Higher Vocational Colleges: The Case of Zhejiang Province

433

participants on the characteristics of successful

entrepreneurs and the risks involved in starting a

business; evaluate their suitability to start small

businesses; estimate the resources needed to start a

small business; choose a project that suits you. (2)

SYB business plan training (the last eight steps).

This includes market research and forecasting,

corporate recruitment and team building, selection of

appropriate legal forms and legal responsibilities,

prediction of start-up capital requirements,

formulation of cost, profit and cash flow plans,

determination of whether your business can survive

and start a business (Ren, 2005; Fei, 2007).

2.3 Scholastical Provincial and

National Competitions

China' Internet +' College Students' Innovation and

Entrepreneurship Competition (IEC) is a national

entrepreneurship competition under the guidance of

the Ministry of Science and Technology, the

Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Education, the

Cyberspace Administration of China and the All-

China Federation of Industry and Commerce since

2015 (Table 1).

Table 1: China 'Internet +' college students' IEC system for over five years.

Yea

2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Host

University

Jilin

University

(North

China)

Huazhong

University of

Science and

Technology

(Centre China)

Xidian University

(West China)

Xiamen

University

(South China)

Zhejiang

University

(East China)

Project

Field

'Internet +'

Traditional

Industry,

New Form

of Industry,

Public

Service,

Technical

Support

Platform

'Internet +'

Modern

Agriculture,

Manufacturing

Industry, IT

Service,

Technical

Support

Platform,

Commercial

Service, Public

Service, Social

Entrepreneurshi

'Internet +'

Modern

Agriculture,

Manufacturing

Industry, IT

Service, Cultural

and Creative

Service,

Commercial

Service, Public

Service, Social

Entrepreneurship

'Internet +'

Modern

Agriculture,

Manufacturin

g Industry, IT

Service,

Cultural and

Creative

Service,

Social

Service,

Social

Entrepreneurs

hip

'Internet +'

Modern

Agriculture,

Manufacturin

g Industry, IT

Service,

Cultural and

Creative

Service,

Social Service

Objects

Type

Participate

Creative

Group,

Practice

Group

Creative Group,

Start-up Group,

Growth Group

Creative Group,

Start-up Group,

Growth Group,

Employment-

oriented

Entrepreneurship

Group

Creative

Group, Start-

up Group,

Growth

Group,

Employment-

oriented

Entrepreneurs

hip Group

Creative

Group, Start-

up Group,

Growth

Group,

teacher-

student co-

creation group

Quota of

Final

300 600 600 600 1200

Data source: retrieved from the notices of annual IEC announced by the Ministry of Education.

The IEC adopts the three levels' competition

system of school-level preliminary competition,

provincial-level semi-final competition and national

finals. The school-level preliminary competition

shall be organised by colleges and universities.

Provincial second round shall be held by all

provinces. The national final shall be selected and

recommended by all regions according to the quota,

which is determined by the competition committee.

This committee allocates the allowance of the

national finals, taking into account the number of

teams from different provinces, the number of

participating colleges and universities, the

development of IEE and so on. In the first session,

more than 57,000 teams from 1,878 universities

signed up for the competition, submitted more than

36,000 projects and attracted more than 200,000

students (Wu et.al., 2017).

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The first China "Internet +" college students' IEC

was held in 2015. However, local provinces did not

know the competition system, and there were no

precedent to follow, so provincial education

departments did not openly organise provincial

competitions in that year. In 2016, the education

department of Zhejiang province began to hold the

first "Internet +" college student IEC, with 97

participating universities, including all

undergraduate and vocational colleges (Table 2 and

Table 3). With the promotion of the popularity of the

competition, the average annual growth rate of the

declared projects is as high as 93.40%. Similarly,

universities do not know the provincial competition

system, so they did not officially organise the

university-level competition until 2017. Taking the

no.1 vocational college in Zhejiang province as an

example, the average annual growth rate of the

declared projects is as high as 225%, which is much

higher than the average level of the whole province.

2.4 Mass Inovation Space

China's IEE service institutions were first

established in the 1980s. There were incubators,

university science parks, accelerators,

entrepreneurship nursery and so on, which formed a

service mode dominated by entrepreneurship

incubation (Xie, &Liu, 2018). The mass innovation

space is a new word extracted by the ministry of

science and technology after conducting research on

the maker space, incubator base and other IEE

service institutions in Beijing, Shenzhen and other

places. In terms of expression, mass innovation

space is a word with Chinese characteristics, which

can also be said to be the product of local maker

space (Table 4). Different from the traditional maker

space, it is mainly reflected in the enhancement of

entrepreneurship incubation function. Therefore, it

can be understood that the mass innovation area =

maker space + entrepreneurship incubation (Wang,

&Ye, 2015).

Table 2: Zhejiang province IEC results over five years.

Yea

2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Universities

Partici

ated

- 97 - 99 107

Projects

Declared

- 2033 4488 7452 27410

Projects of

Final

- 139 200 214 667

Data source: retrieved from the results of annual IEC

announced by Zhejiang education department.

Table 3: Jinhua polytechnic college IEC results over five

years.

Yea

2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Students

Partici

ate

- - 500 1270 6100

Projects

Declare

- - 100 200 900

Projects of

Final

- - - 17 31

Data source: retrieved from the news of the homepage of

Jinhua polytechnic college.

In Zhejiang province at present, there are two

modes of mass innovation space. One is

Characteristic Village, which is rooted in the local

original characteristic industry base and to build a

complete industrial ecosystem, such as Hangzhou

dream village, cloud village, Shaoxing rice wine

village, E-games village (Chen, Xiang, & Yu, 2015).

Different from internationally renowned towns such

as Beppu in Japan and Silicon Valley in the United

States, although Characteristic Villages are named

after towns, they are not first-level administrative

divisions. Characteristic Villages are municipal

development platforms based on economic goals and

resource endowment（Che & Huang, 2016）. The

other is the incubator model, build by the venture

capital institutions (such as Silicon Paradise, Puhua

Capital, and Zheshang VC), well-known enterprises

(such as Alibaba, Netease), and universities (Chen,

Xiang, & Yu, 2015). Taking Zhejiang Industry

Polytechnic College (ZJIPC) as an example, we built

a provincial mass innovation space-Yue Mass

Innovation Space, which is based on the campus of

the national demonstration public training venues

and teachers' resources. In the early stage, students

from the school of design and art, the school of

mechanical engineering, the school of electronic

engineering and the school of transportation, were

mainly provided with an industrial robot, PLC

control system, CNC machine tools and other

instruments,so as to give the students industrial

robot, PLC control system, CNC machine tools and

other instruments, so as to give the students'

innovative and entrepreneurial team with the

opportunity to develop innovative products. At the

same time, students can also apply for the computer

workstation in the training site of the school of

design and the school of business, to promote and

display products and teams. There are 49 teachers in

ZJIPC who have participated in Zhejiang cultivation

project and can provide consulting services such as

roadshow, company registration and capital docking.

Research on the Mechanism of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Education in Higher Vocational Colleges: The Case of Zhejiang Province

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Table 4: The construction and evolution of China's mass innovation space ecosystem.

IEE

institutions

Incubator

University

science par

Accelerator

Entrepreneurship

nursery

Mass innovation

space

Yea

1987 2000 2007 2009 2015

Phases

Introduction

erio

Growing period,

maturation

erio

Maturation period,

decline

erio

Initial period Full period

Source: Collated from Xie, & Liu (2018: 581)

Thus, it can be seen that the development model

of mass innovation space mainly has three levels:

first, the primary mode of version 1.0: build physical

space that can promote communication and realise

technology sharing by integrating idle resources, and

provide hardware support mainly for entrepreneurs'

office space; second, the upgrading mode of version

2.0: except hardware support, also offer software

support, such as to conduct entrepreneurship

education and training guidance, capital docking

services and so on. The profit model of this version

is relatively single, and the profit cycle is long.

Third, the 3.0 version with the comprehensive

entrepreneurial ecosystem: mainly guided by

government support and operated in the way of

corporate management, relying on university parks

or industrial bases. It provides supporting services of

various preferential policies and one-stop services

for start-up enterprises and has its own resource

advantages and service features to build an

entrepreneurial ecosystem (Lu, 2018).

3 DISCUSSION

In the knowledge production field, Zhejiang

Department of Education invests lots of resources to

train a large number of entrepreneurial mentors,

whether it is from undergraduate or vocational

colleges. Hangzhou, Ningbo and Jinhua make up

more than 60% of the population in figure 2. That

means these three regional cities have great demand

for human resources in innovation and higher urban

vitality relatively. At the same time, many successful

entrepreneurs in mass innovation space are invited to

the Cultivation Project. Their diverse careers are

vital to knowledge production. In the

recontextualisation field, through instructor training

and student training, teachers in colleges or

universities transfer separate experiences from

industries to formal and systematic tracks in the

classroom. In area III, the popularity of innovation

and entrepreneurship competition has been

increasing, and the participation of higher vocational

colleges has doubled. For students, they get field-

specific experience in the races and apply the

supports from the mass innovation space more

efficiently.

4 CONCLUSIONS

The per capita income of Zhejiang province has

reached the standard of middle developed countries.

And, the development of each industry also tends to

enter a mature period. How to carry out industrial

upgrading and transformation? How to join the list

of developed countries? The reserve of innovative

talents is the key, especially for college students.

The government invests a massive amount of money

in pushing the cultivation project, which aims to

help college teachers realise the importance of IEE

for social development, and make higher vocational

education closer to the actual needs of the industry.

In the form of IEE, all sectors of society are

involved and make concerted efforts to put the

reserve of innovative talents into practice. After the

instructor training, teachers are able to develop the

IEE courses inserted to the speciality courses and

conduct the SYB training. Students choose IEE

courses according to personal interests, organise a

team and submit a business plan to IEC. Excellent

and award-winning teams can also apply mass

innovation space, obtain various resources inside

and outside the university, and smoothly carry out

the commercial operation of their project. Finally,

the pedagogic mechanism of Basil Bernstein's theory

is realised by appointing the well-run project leader

as the lecturer in the cultivation project.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This article was supported by two grants. One is

about philosophy and social science research 13th

five-year plan (135J080) from Shaoxing Philosophy

and Social Science Planning Awards Leading Group

Office. The other is the critical research project

(2018SJZD06) from Commerce Economy

Association of Zhejiang.

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4.0 Industry”

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